data center

Following in a growing line of eco-friendly data centers, Facebook announced on August 15th, 2017 that their newest center in New Albany, Ohio would be powered by renewable energy. The data center’s power sources would include “wind, hydroelectric, and solar power”, according to Facebook’s representative, Lindsay Amos. This New Albany branch is set to open in 2019, becoming the tenth data center for Mark Zuckerberg’s Social Network. Amos also added that, ultimately, the data center’s goal would be, “100 percent clean and renewable energy in our mix for our entire operations”.Read More

The US-Norwegian company Kolos has big plans for the tiny town of Ballangen, Norway, located near the Arctic Circle. There, on these icy grounds, they’re planning to build the world’s biggest data center. Once completed, this mammoth structure would require 1,000 megawatts of power to run with facilities spanning 600,000 square meters. Yet this immense project won’t reach its final stages for another 10 years at least! In the meantime, we’ll tell you what the future holds for Kolos’s gigantic data center. Read More

As data centers grow worldwide — in both number and physical size — over the coming years, will employment opportunities also grow? Unfortunately, the increase in data centers doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in employment opportunities. In fact, major data center operations are now hiring fewer data center engineers, instead choosing to monitor the data center through smart technology and machine learning technology.

Smart technology is able to monitor the data center’s environment, such as the cooling and heating of the room — keeping the right temperature is especially crucial during warmer months, in order to keep maintenance costs down — in addition to monitoring the data center’s power, which is more of an issue during warmer months when power outages are likelier. While smart technology can sense many issues in the environment, it still can’t catch all issues, nor can it analyze the data that it collects. That’s where machine learning technology comes in by combining with Internet of Things devices in order to analyze video and sounds to help prevent data center issues. Read More

Ever dreamed of going to school for data center engineering? If you apply by August 31st, 2017, you could be one of the world’s first students to join such a Bachelor’s program. Offered by the Institute of Technology in Sligo, Ireland, this two-year university degree is the first of its kind. It was created to help data centers find talented candidates, who are fresh out of school but already armed with the necessary skills and on-the-job training. The Institute of Technology says they created the program after eighteen months of consultations with world-class companies, including Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Chances are, this B.Eng degree should come in handy to those lucky participants. Read More

If the recent photo leaks of Hollywood celebrities have taught us anything, it’s that cloud systems aren’t secure places for storing data. Indeed, don’t think for a second that A-listers are the only Americans being impacted by these cyber crimes. Many people store personal, confidential data in their clouds, which makes them a tempting target. Hackers could easily gain access to your online storage too if you don’t take the proper safety precautions. While there isn’t a way to guarantee that your data are totally secure, we’ll tell you the best methods to help safeguard your cloud. Read More

On June 23, 2017, a judge was expected to make a final ruling on Apple’s plans to build a data center in Athenry, Ireland. Instead, the Irish Courts Service cited a “shortage of High Court Judges, practitioners and parties,” and pushed the court date back to July 30, when presumably someone will be available to preside. If the June 23 ruling had happened, it would’ve been the official verdict in a tug-of-war between Apple and Irish citizens that started two years ago.

Apple first proposed the Athenry data center back in February 2015, but a series of obstacles have halted the project. Essentially, the building plans are gridlocked by a small band of Irish locals. This standoff is resulting in a true battle of wills, where neither side plans on budging. However, with such mounting tensions, many outsiders wonder why Apple hasn’t already taken its business elsewhere. Keep reading to discover why the powerful company’s plans are being foiled. Read More

This year, Washington State University learned a hard lesson in Data Security 101. It was recently revealed that the university discovered a significant breach on April 21st, 2017. But WSU kept quiet about the crime until June 9th, when they began mailing out letters to the affected parties. Turns out, over a million individuals had their personal information stolen!

So, why did WSU stay tight-lipped for 7 weeks? The college’s rationale behind the delay was that they needed time to consult local authorities and launch an internal investigation. Keep reading to discover which details were finally revealed by WSU’s president, Kirk H. Schulz. Read More

Back on May 26, 2017, a huge power surge occurred at British Airways data center near London’s Heathrow Airport. It resulted in a center-wide outage that grounded 479 airplanes and stranded over 75,000 passengers who were hoping to fly to cities around the world. Over the next two days, 193 more flights were canceled as the airline scrambled to return its operations to normal. Overall, this 3-day disruption caused a 1.8% drop in British Airways passenger traffic.

One of the latest data breaches to make headlines is the recent revelation that the medical records of some 15,000 plastic surgery patients, some of whom may be celebrities, were stolen from a high-end plastic surgery practice. On top of that, it has been reported that videos and photographs depicting some of the patients were also compromised. Read More

We certainly are in the age of big data: more than 90% of the world’s data has been created over the last several years, and the amount of data is doubling roughly every two years. By 2020, IDC estimates that we will produce 44 zettabytes of data every year — that’s 44 trillion gigabytes! This includes all of the data that humans produce through various online activities, in addition to the data collected by Internet of Things devices. Read More